Addington Sixth Form – Three Years on

Opened back in October 2020, the new building provides contemporary teaching facilities for pupils with special educational needs (SEN) of sixth form age, freeing up space in the main building for 50 additional pupils of younger ages. The decision to expand addressed the need for higher capacity in the area, allowing pupils to be educated closer to home after Wokingham Borough Council estimated that c.130 local children with SEN were being educated outside of the borough.

Designed specifically to support pupils aged 16-19 into adult life, the sixth form building features enlarged classrooms and workshops for life skills settings in a nurturing, sustainable learning environment. Upon opening, Headteacher Sara Attra described the new build as, “an excellent addition to the school’s provision”, adding that the new facilities had “greatly enhanced our vocational curriculum.”

With 70% of the building manufactured offsite in Reds10’s East Yorkshire factory, Addington School pushed the boundaries of offsite construction at the time, delivering a building which was not uniform or ‘boxy’ in its appearance. The quality control provided by factory manufacture not only improved the delivery programme and minimised disruption to the school, but also allowed for the inclusion of enhanced carbon reduction features, supporting the council’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

Following the success of Addington School, HLM and Reds10 collaborated on a bid for a place on the Department for Education (DfE)’s ‘Off-site Schools Framework (incorporating modular and MMC delivery)’ framework. The ambition was to illustrate that our solution can deliver the DfE baseline design without compromising any statutory or DfE output specification requirements, including room adjacencies, the area schedule, daylighting and ventilation. The team collaborated closely, developing a solution that delivered quality and adaptability of design whilst maximising offsite methods. They demonstrated that utilising MMC would minimise construction time and onsite disruption, while increasing cost efficiency and providing a sufficiently flexible model.

To date, we have designed 14 new schools via the framework; 6 mainstream primary, 7 SEN and 1 high school. Each design is an evolution of the framework solution to satisfy all the school-specific requirements, including varied and contextual planning parameters. Since Addington, we have also partnered with Reds10 on Dinton Activity Centre and the Single Living Accommodation for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation.

Joe Shepherd, Education Sector Lead & Director, Reds10, said:

“HLM share our commitment to looking outside the ‘architectural box’ and an awareness of the wider implication of design on the overall project delivery. Throughout our partnership, we have been able to push each other’s thinking, working collaboratively to feed lessons learned back into future projects, continually pushing forward what is possible through our collective designs to deliver higher Pre-Manufactured Value (PMV) without compromising on quality. We are looking forward to working with the team on future projects to continue to deliver schools quicker and safer and provide much-needed school places through innovative design.”

This ongoing partnership is just one of our demonstrable commitments to offsite construction. Having gained experience across all sectors we work in, we fully support the government’s recognition of a need for investment in the offsite industry, which addresses labour skills shortages and the urgent reduction of carbon emissions.

To find out more about our Offsite and MMC journey, contact Anne Daw, Head of MMC Delivery, today.